be uncomfortable. It’s not like you’ll offend the other passengers.”
She chuckles but stops when I don’t smile. Other than her and the pilots, I’m the only person on board. My local security staff will meet me in Brazil.
I wish I didn’t have to use this small plane that requires a refueling, but it is what it is. My destination doesn’t have a runway capable of landing a larger plane.
“In any case, sir, once we hit our cruising altitude, the bench seats are great for catching a nap as well,” the flight attendant says before making herself scarce. I don’t even watch her go, turning my attention to what’s going on outside the cabin windows, where the ground crew is doing final prep so we can take off.
I feel like hell. I know I’m doing the right thing, but that doesn’t make it easy.
This morning, Emma slept in my arms peacefully and I knew it. I was even able to whisper the truth to myself.
I love her.
I’d watched her for almost an hour, memorizing every freckle, every sleepy sigh, and the lush curves of her body. She’s all sweetness and softness, inside and out.
But that’s why, after absorbing as much of her as I could in that single kiss, I held back from telling her. It’s why I kept the peace with Claire and begged her to take care of Emma.
I know Emma won’t understand, but ironically, in my enemy, Claire, I could see understanding. She knows what kind of man I am, what I would do to her sister. Yes, I’d love Emma with a passion that would sear the very pages of history with the heat of our bond.
But in the end, I’m not good for Emma. Whether it’s through my own inner darkness, my failings, or a hail of gunfire from one of my family’s enemies, I’d destroy her.
So I have to do it now when it’s an easier break, for her and for me, even though my body is revolting against me, trying to rise up out of the seat and go back to her.
Because it’d be so easy. Even as the engines fire up, part of me wants to get out of my seat and run across the tarmac and jump into my car.
I want to pull her in close and tell her how I feel, that I want her to move in, to be my woman . . . to be my wife. I want to have that comfortable life, to raise a few kids . . . hell, maybe even finish raising Caleb.
But I can’t. Because despite every happiness that such a life would bring me, there’d be that poison festering just below the surface, deep in my psyche. Giving up on understanding what drove my father, giving up what set me upon the life path that I’m on . . . I could ignore it for a time.
But it’d explode eventually, poisoning our lives. So my gut roils and my heart breaks at what I’ve done, knowing it’ll hurt her.
But I have to.
It’s better that she be merely cracked now than shattered later.
I’m turning into my dad, after all, despite my fiercest battles against that ending. Despite all my promises that I’d be different, I’m running his company, chasing down some dangerous adventure for treasure and truth, and most damning, leaving behind those who love me. Not just Emma, but Caleb too.
There’s no such thing as a happily ever after. Not for a bastard like me.
I’m not throwing myself a pity party. I’m just mad that, even in death, my father has set me up to be alone, obsessed, and to never get the happily ever after I once wanted.
I thought it was beyond my reach, but with Emma, for the first time in a long time, I’d hoped.
And the death of that hope is a bitter, jagged pill to swallow. But I won’t do that to her.
She deserves better than a distracted man, one torn between the past and the future but never truly living in the present, a man not able to promise her much beyond material things.
She doesn’t value those in the least. No, Emma wants the real stuff . . . my heart and soul. By the time this is over, however, I’m afraid I’ll be too stained to be of any use to a woman like her.
This is for her own good, and maybe in time, she’ll see that.
The engines get louder, and within moments, we’re taxiing. Even